Have you ever felt stuck in a job or career that no longer aligns with your values and goals? Maybe you’ve also had the experience of accepting conditions you once considered unacceptable. Or becoming desensitized to things you once considered intolerable. Or resigning yourself to the idea that your job is meant to bring in a paycheck rather than provide deeper gratification.
I’ve been in this boat myself, where I suddenly found myself doing work misaligned with my true values. I’ve found myself in work environments misaligned with my values, ethics, and character. I’ve found myself marketing products I never imagined I would market.
Feeling uncertain about whether to leave a job is a common dilemma. This often arises from not having a clear understanding of the boundaries you’re unwilling to cross, even if it means sacrificing your career growth. My discussion with Maddie Potvin on Career Relaunch® podcast episode 43, got me thinking about the importance of defining your walk-away point.
Draw Your Lines
One of the first concepts you learn about in any negotiations class is the importance of defining your “walkaway point.” A walkway point is where you decide to walk away. When the price goes beyond what you can afford. When the conditions reach a point where they’re no longer acceptable. Or when the other party is asking for more than you’re willing to offer.
Just as negotiators establish their bottom line, defining your career walkaway point can empower you to make decisions that align with those things that matter most, including those things you’re willing to tolerate in your career. This means defining what’s acceptable to you, like what you might do when negotiating a job offer. But it’s equally important to consider your walkaway point for moving on to something new.
The Toughest Negotiation Is Often With Yourself
In the context of formal negotiations, most of us are used to the idea of reviewing and agreeing to certain terms and conditions in legal documents or service agreements. However, we should be equally judicious when defining our own needs and desires so we can then communicate these to our managers, colleagues, and employers.
Negotiations are rarely straightforward. Getting clear on what is and is not acceptable is complicated. Interestingly, we’re also always in a negotiation with ourselves, which is perhaps even more complex. When I talk to clients and audiences torn about whether to make a career change, most of them are struggling to decide what they are and are not willing to tolerate in their jobs because leaving your job behind can have huge implications to your life, financial stability, and career trajectory.
Needless to say, the decision to take or leave a job is rarely straightforward.
Work Can Become A Moral Dilemma
I’ve experienced this confusion myself. For example, I think of myself as a healthy person. When I began my career in marketing, I told myself I would not market certain products that conflicted with my own values, including junk food. So when I decided to market desserts back in my days as a brand marketer, I felt very conflicted about it.
During that moment in my life, I was eager to quickly land a job in the UK shortly after I’d immigrated to the country from the US. So I negotiated with myself, deciding I was willing to market desserts so I could minimize my gap in employment, gain other important marketing skills, and have the experience of working on a rapidly growing brand.
I worked in the dessert industry for a few years, eventually shifting from marketing luxury desserts to marketing luxury ice cream. But spending my professional energies getting more people to eat unhealthy desserts started to eat away at me. Marketing a product that’s inherently unhealthy felt wrong. It almost felt irresponsible.
So I eventually had to consider my walkaway points. One walkaway point was when the work I was doing was no longer meaningful to me. Another was if my work was adversely affecting my family life, my physical health, or my emotional well-being. And a final point was marketing products I wouldn’t want my own loved ones to consume. When all of those lines were crossed, I decided to walk away.
Establish Your Walkaway Limits
Clarifying your walkaway point helps you recognize when it’s time to move on from your current line of work, whether it’s your role, function, location, or any other aspect of your job. Here are tow things you can do to start.
First, take stock of your values or key priorities in your life. Consider personal priorities like growth, health, emotional well-being, or family. Consider your professional priorities like fulfillment, work/life balance, finances, or impact.
Second, define the line that represents your walkaway point. For example, for personal growth, maybe your walkaway point is when you feel like you’re no longer learning anything. For well-being, maybe it’s when you are experiencing a certain amount of physical and emotional exhaustion from your work week. For work/life balance, maybe it’s when your work hours leave you with only X days during the week when you have dinner with your kids.
Whatever your limits are, define them. Write them down. Then, get clear with yourself on the lines you will not tolerate crossing or values you refuse to compromise.
Being Too Flexible Has Its Downsides
If you don’t take the time to define your walkaway points, you may find yourself just maintaining the momentum in your career, even if it doesn’t fill you with joy. You may drag your feet. You may tolerate a situation you know isn’t acceptable. If you haven’t defined a clear set of warning signs to watch for, you won’t know when to move on.
The most unhappy professionals I know are in these situations. They know things don’t feel right, but they just can’t quite bring themselves to make that leap to move on, partially because they haven’t gotten clear with themselves on what’s in bounds and out of bounds.
If you’re in that situation, just remember that you always have a choice about whether you want to continue.
Own Your Career Choices
When I talk to people thinking about making a career change, most of them are negotiating with themselves about what they’re willing to accept. By getting clear on your walkaway point, you empower yourself to make decisions aligned with your values and priorities.
So take the time to carefully reflect on your values, clearly define your boundaries, and proactively lay down the lines you won’t cross. These guideposts can inform your professional choices that enable you to follow a meaningful, fulfilling career path.
When you know where you stand, you empower yourself to make bold, transformative decisions – ones that can potentially reshape the trajectory of your entire professional life. So get clear on your boundaries. And more importantly, dare to honor them. Your fulfillment, happiness, and growth depend on it.
Learn More
Also, if you want to hear more about this topic of defining your tipping points in your career, check out Career Relaunch® podcast episode 43 with Maddie Potvin, where I discuss this in more detail. You can also watch this video about setting career boundaries.
Share Your Thoughts
I’m curious to hear from you. What boundary are you considering setting at work? When has honoring a boundary made a positive difference in your career? Leave a comment below.
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